10 human superpowers you don't know about

1. Super taste

This superpower is quite common - every fourth person on the planet. People with super tasteLove Salt? You Might Be a “Supertaster”, Bitter taste markers explain variability in vegetable sweetness, bitterness, and intake, Super-Tasters and Non-Tasters: Is it Better to Be Average? They feel the characteristics of dishes more vividly: sweet ones seem sweeter to them, salty ones seem saltier, and so on. Moreover, most often this feature is possessed by women and residents of Asia, Africa and South America.

But if you are endowed with super taste, it will not be an advantage for a chef career. Those with this ability find many ordinary dishes, especially vegetable ones, unpleasant to the taste. They can also abuse salt and sugar to disguiseAre You a Supertaster?, Genetic Taste Markers and Food Preferences bitterness in food that is felt stronger than other people.

2. Drug resistance

Have you missed a couple of beers with a buddy at the bar and have a hangover in the morning? Ozzy Osbourne sympathizes with you, although he himself does not know how it feels. Throughout life

musician consumed an unimaginable amount of booze, cocaine, herb, methamphetamine, LSD and other prohibited substances.

Ozzy couldOzzy Osbourne: I'm a happily married man with three kids. I’m not Dracula ’ swallow 25 Vicodin tablets a day, drink four bottles of cognac and smell it all in powder, and then go on tour.

Try this and you will be hospitalized with severe intoxication. And not the fact that they will be able to save. And Ozzy is 71 now.

The thing is that the musician has a rare mutation of the ADH4 gene. It is responsible for the synthesis of a protein called alcohol dehydrogenase-4, which breaks down alcohol and other intoxicants. The mutation was found by Knome, Inc. when in 2010 it fully sequencedOzzy Osbourne Is a Genetic Mutant Ozzy's genome.

True, the mutation still does not give complete immunity to drugs, so problems with immunity and Parkinson's disease Ozzy got it working. It is also much more sensitiveGene's Addiction, or Why Ozzy Osbourne Is Still Alive to caffeine than common people: Absorbing the invigorating drink in large quantities would kill it faster than cocaine.

3. Supervision

Ordinary people have trichromatic vision - that is In eyes there are three types of light-sensitive receptors. But in the world there are also owners of four types of cones - this phenomenon is called tetrachromacy. While most people only see 1 million shades, tetrachromats can distinguish up to 100 million.

This feature is more often manifestedWhat are the limits of human vision?, Women's eyes, from which nothing can be hidden, THE MYSTERY OF TETRACHROMACY: IF 12% OF WOMEN HAVE FOUR CONE TYPES IN THEIR EYES, WHY DO SO FEW OF THEM ACTUALLY SEE MORE COLORS? among women. 12% of them are tetrachromats, but only 2–3% have enhanced color perception. Only 8% of men have four types of cones, but their ability to see shades does not seem to differColor Vision: Perspectives from Different Disciplines, Human Potential for Tetrachromacy from the rest of the people.

Tetrachromacy does not give special advantages to people, but finches, for example, need itUltraviolet vision and mate choice in zebra finchesto look for food and mating partners. And studying tetrachromacy can helpGene therapy for red-green color blindness in adult primates in healing color blindness.

4. Hyperelastic skin

Remember Elastic from The Incredibles, which could stretch like bubble gum? In reality, such people also exist. Ehlers-Danlos syndrome is a genetic disorder of the connective tissue caused by defects in collagen synthesis and affectingEhlers ‑ Danlos syndrome joints and skin.

It allows its owner to stretch the skin and bend in a way that no ordinary gymnast has ever dreamed of.

True, harm from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, or imperfect desmogenesisHypermobile Ehlers ‑ Danlos Syndrome, disproportionately more: people with it are more likely to be injured, their wounds do not heal properly, and the skin is constantly bruised and damaged.

5. Echolocation

Lost vision people develop other senses in themselves in order to somehow compensate for the blindness. For example, the echolocation used by bats and whales isA summary of research investigating echolocation abilities of blind and sighted humans and in humans - albeit not so advanced.

By tapping with their cane, tapping their feet, or snapping their toes, people who have been trained to navigate with echolocation, blind people pick up the reflected sound waves and thus determineEcholocation versus echo suppression in humans location and size of surrounding objects.

Of course, performing flips and crushing the skulls of bandits, like Daredevil from Marvel comics, will not work, but, for example, skatingWhat is echolocation and how does it help blind people on a bicycle - quite.

6. Insensitive to pain

There are people in the world who do not feel pain! True, if you think that such people can be made ideal soldiers or athletes, then you are wrong.

Anhidrosis neuropathy is a disease that is caused by a genetic mutation. The latter preventsNTRK1 Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhidrosis the formation of nerve cells responsible for transmitting signals of pain, heat and cold.

Those who suffer from this disease are forced toNumbness or pain numbness live very carefully, because due to the lack of pain, they can easily injure themselves, for example, pulling on a boot.

7. Eternal youth

Brooke Megan Greenberg lived only 20 years. And all this time she stayed"Toddler" is 20 Years Old, and Forever Young, Due to Baffling Medical Condition at the level of a two-year-old child - both externally and mentally. Scientists do not know what this disease is, so they named itA case study of “disorganized development” and its possible relevance to genetic determinants of aging "Syndrome X" (or neotenic complex syndrome).

Besides Greenberg, the world knowsMedical mystery two more cases of this disease. They are little girl Gabrielle Kay from Montana and middle-aged man Nikki Freeman from Australia who looks like a 10-year-old child.

8. Super strong bones

If you have watched the series of films "The fast and the furious", You know that Dominic Toretto performed by Vin Diesel is invulnerable. He can crash his Dodge into another car, blowing his own car to shreds, and then calmly get out from behind the wheel and go about business as if nothing had happened.

If an ordinary mortal were in such a situation, only a wet place would be left of him, and at least henna for a bald roll.

Do you think this is an artistic assumption? But people like Toretto also exist in reality. True, there seem to be no bank robbers and street racers among them.

It's all about the mutation of the LRP5 gene, which leads to the fact that human bones becomeThe world’s densest bones - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences, “Unbreakable” bones prompt a hunt for genes incredibly durable. This phenomenon was first discovered when an X-ray was taken of a guy who got into an accident. Despite the fact that his car was blown to smithereens, the driver was not injured. The bones of a man were at least eight times stronger than ordinary bones! His relatives were found to have the same "superpower".

True, this mutation at the same time increasesHigh Bone Density Due to a Mutation in LDL ‑ Receptor-Related Protein 5 chance to get polycystic liver disease.

9. Lack of prints

In film "Kingsman: The Golden Ring"The leader of the criminal organization erased her henchmen's fingerprints so that they could not be identified. But in the real world there are people who do not need any laser manipulation.

Adermatoglyphia is a rare genetic mutation in which a person has no fingerprints. The skin is perfectly smooth with it - it is extremely difficult to recognize the traces of touching such a hand.

The mutation was first discoveredA mutation in a skin-specific isoform of SMARCAD1 causes autosomal ‑ dominant adermatoglyphia from a Swiss woman who went to the United States. They could not let her in - according to the law, all non-residents of the United States must be fingerprinted.

10. Unwillingness to sleep

Many people think that Batman, or Bruce Wayne, there are no superpowers. This is not so, because otherwise how could this rich man survive without sleep, managing the affairs of his company during the day and knocking the crap out of criminals at night?

He probably has a mutation in the hDEC2 gene. People with her feel vigorous and slept, although they can spendThe Transcriptional Repressor DEC2 Regulates Sleep Length in Mammals in a dream, no more than four hours a day. Just imagine: 20 hours for great achievements!